Telstra chief executive David Thodey has embarked on a major repositioning of the company towards Asia, stating he wants one-third of the company’s ­profits to come from overseas in the next five years and that big acquisitions are an option.

In an interview to mark his fifth anniversary as chief executive, Mr Thodey laid out his growth plan for Telstra and quashed speculation he would be leaving the company.

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It is the first time Mr Thodey has ­provided such a target for Telstra’s ­offshore aspirations, which are ­primarily focused in Asia. And it’s an aggressive target.

Telstra International now accounts for only about 1 per cent of the telco’s $10.3 billion earnings, according to analysts. About 3 per cent of its revenues come from its overseas activities.

Mr Thodey, who turned 60 this month, is one of the country’s more modest chief executives, preferring to drive a Toyota Corolla while running Australia’s seventh biggest company. It’s a stark contrast to his predecessor, Sol Trujillo, a controversial leader who hogged the limelight.

Mr Thodey has spent the past five years steadying Telstra after the rollercoaster ride with Mr Trujillo and cementing the telco’s dominance in Australia, particularly in mobile phones, as its competitors Optus and Vodafone have flailed.

Now, Mr Thodey said it’s time for Telstra to enter “a whole new growth period" to position it as a global ­technology company.

Such growth plans might unnerve some investors. It signals a return of Telstra to the days when it was led by Ziggy Switkowski and the company embarked on a big expansion into Asia, which resulted in the company writing down $1 billion on those investments.

Mr Thodey said acquisitions would only be done if they could be proved ­better than returning funds to shareholders. “We think there’s the opportunity to do that."

He would not rule out a ‘big bet’ acquisition.

“It’s got to be an option we look at. However, I’m acutely conscious this industry has literally lost trillions of dollars in grandiose investments that have not delivered to shareholders."

Matt Williams, head of equities at Perpetual Investments, said: “The big bang acquisitions that ­happened in Ziggy’s time didn’t really work out that well. I don’t think shareholders would be against incremental offshore investment just not big bets. They could do that plus do some kind of capital management."

Investors such as Mr Williams, who have marked Mr Thodey’s ­tenure as good and want him to ­continue, would like higher dividends for shareholders. In its half-year result in February, Telstra raised its interim dividend for the first time in eight years.

Fraser McLeish, a Credit Suisse analyst, said Telstra had to make acquisitions to grow its Asian ­business but warned ­shareholders would be concerned by big bets.

“Anything that would put dividend growth at risk would be a concern for investors," Mr McLeish said.

“They’re still subscale in Asia so to really make that big enough to move the dial you’d think they’ve got to do some sort of acquisition. My view is they’d certainly have scope to do low-single billion-dollar acquisitions."

‘Enormous growth opportunity’

Mr Thodey said acquisitions or investments, which would predominantly be in Asia, would focus on enterprise services, e-health, digital media and also mobile. There has been speculation that Telstra’s focus would be in south-east Asia.

“We’re trying to lay foundations around new businesses that can go global," he said. “It will take time. Thankfully Asia is an enormous growth opportunity. We’ve got strong presence and we’ve just got to build on that going forward."

Mr Thodey said despite Telstra’s patchy investment track record in Asia over the past two decades, the company had a strong executive team, some of whom had worked in Asia, and understood the region better than at any time in Telstra’s history. Among those executives are chief financial officer Andy Penn, Brendon Riley, the group executive global enterprise and services, and Robert Nason, group executive, business support and improvement.

Under Mr Switkowski, Telstra bought Hong Kong mobile operator CSL, which Telstra sold this year, and undersea cable network Reach. It wrote off more than $1 billion on those investments.

In a sign of the shifting direction at the company, Mr Thodey said staff and investors had to think of Telstra as a technology company rather than a telecommunications company.

“I do think that Telstra has the potential to be a great, global ­technology company," he said. “That’s a big statement. I do think for Australia and the capability of people inside Telstra we’ve got to have that objective."

Shares in Telstra has been trading at almost a nine-year high and finished yesterday steady at $5.36 as investors chase the dividend yield on the stock. Investors were initially underwhelmed by Mr Thodey’s appointment five years ago, with the share price falling.

Since then he has steadily won over shareholders through his adroit management of the NBN ­negotiations with the government, improvements in customer service, reshaping the company to reduce its complexity and cementing its position as Australia’s dominant mobile service provider.